What are "Smart Parks"?

So you’ve heard about smart parks, but what are they? Today, we have smart cars, smart homes, smartphones...Just about a smart everything. With the IoT’s starting to gain some momentum there has been a large focus on connecting everything to technology. The more devices that can communicate with us and with each other, the more efficient we are able to be.

Think about the time savings if you’re driving and you don’t have to wait at a stoplight when nobody is coming from the other direction. The light understands that you are the only one around and it turns green. That is efficiency.

Our parks can start to gain this same type of efficiency. The IoT’s has shown us that the most mundane “Things”, like a park bench can have great technological benefit. By equipping these with sensors, you can start to track the usage of parks. You can determine how often they are being used and when they are being used. As you make changes to the park, you can see if the usage increases or decreases.

By adding data tracking devices to your park, you can start to understand how it is used and you can make it more efficient. That is the premise of the Koloni Kube, which allows park goers to rent recreation equipment from a kiosk and return it all through the users smartphone. They must first create an account, which allows the city to start building data. The city can then track “who” is using the park. What is the users age, when do they use the park, how often do they use it? There are endless amounts of data that can be collected and used to make improvements to the park.

These types of ideas are just the beginning of smart parks. They’ll grow and increase in popularity because the cities will know who their customer is and cater their amenities accordingly. It’s been well overdue, but parks are about to get a whole lot better!